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Launching a World-Class Joint Venture

• James Bamford,
• David Ernst,
• David G. Fubini

JVs and alliances can deliver more shareholder value than M&As can, but getting them off the ground can trip you up in unpredictable ways.

Reprint: R0402G

More than 5,000 joint ventures, and many more contractual alliances, have been launched worldwide in the past five years. Companies are realizing that JVs and alliances can be lucrative vehicles for developing new products, moving into new markets, and increasing revenues. The problem is, the success rate for JVs and alliances is on a par with that for mergers and acquisitions—which is to say not very good.

The authors, all McKinsey consultants, argue that JV success remains elusive for most companies because they don’t pay enough attention to launch planning and execution. Most companies are highly disciplined about integrating the companies they target through M&A, but they rarely commit sufficient resources to launching similarly sized joint ventures or alliances. As a result, the parent companies experience strategic conflicts, governance gridlock, and missed operational synergies. Often, they walk away from the deal.

The launch phase begins with the parent companies’ signing of a memorandum of understanding and continues through the first 100 days of the JV or alliance’s operation. During this period, it’s critical for the parents to convene a team dedicated to exposing inherent tensions early. Specifically, the launch team must tackle four basic challenges. First, build and maintain strategic alignment across the separate corporate entities, each of which has its own goals, market pressures, and shareholders. Second, create a shared governance system for the two parent companies. Third, manage the economic interdependencies between the corporate parents and the JV. And fourth, build a cohesive, high-performing organization (the JV or alliance)—not a simple task, since most managers come from, will want to return to, and may even hold simultaneous positions in the parent companies. Using real-world examples, the authors offer their suggestions for meeting these challenges.

More than 5,000 joint ventures, and many more contractual alliances, have been launched worldwide in the past five years. The largest 100 JVs currently represent more than $350 billion in combined annual revenues. So it’s become clear to many companies that alliances—both equity JVs (where the partners contribute resources to create a new company) and contractual alliances (where the partners collaborate without creating a new company)—can be ideal for managing risk in uncertain markets, sharing the cost of large-scale capital investments, and injecting newfound entrepreneurial spirit into maturing businesses.

• JB James Bamford ( [email protected] ) is a senior managing director at Ankura, where he serves a global client base across industries on joint venture and partnership issues. He previously founded Water Street Partners and co-led the joint venture and alliance practice at McKinsey & Company.
• DE David Ernst ( [email protected] ) is a senior managing director at Ankura, where he works with clients across the globe, in all phases of the joint venture life cycle from deal making to restructuring and exit. He previously founded Water Street Partners and previously co-led the joint venture and alliance practice at McKinsey & Company.
• DF David G. Fubini is a senior partner in McKinsey’s Boston office and leads its global organization and postmerger management practices.

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Negotiating a better joint venture

In the fast-paced world of deal making, joint ventures (JVs) are a conundrum. Slow in the making, often with complicated structures and shared management teams, they seem out of place in a volatile era marked by buzzwords that hype agility and nimble strategic moves. Yet there they are, more than 1,500 JV deals completed annually over the past ten years, including around 10 percent of them characterized as large JVs, with an initial value of more than $250 million. Their volume seems likely to endure—more than two-thirds of executives surveyed in 2014 reported that they expect to do more JVs in the future. 1 1. Eileen Kelly Rinaudo and Robert Uhlaner, “ Joint ventures on the rise ,” McKinsey on Finance , November 2014. This McKinsey Global Survey was in the field from March 11 to March 21, 2014, and garnered 1,263 responses from C-level and senior executives representing the full range of regions, industries, company sizes, and functional specialties. Of them, 982 executives had personal experience leading or managing joint ventures

But JVs are not always embraced without reservation. In fact, we encounter many executives who express significant concerns, often when they’re wrapped up in the uncertainty of JV negotiations. Given how much longer those negotiations can last compared to traditional acquisitions, this is both understandable and alarming. One global conglomerate we’ve observed advises its US-based headquarters to expect JV negotiations to last three to six times longer than M&A negotiations. That’s a long time for doubt to creep in, particularly if the competitive context justifying a venture might shift in the meantime.

How can executives build healthier partner relationships to give future JVs the best odds of success? Our review of a series of long-standing partnerships—supported by our 2014 survey and a series of structured interviews with JV partners 2 2. We interviewed 45 joint-venture managers. —identified three principles that made a difference in deal negotiations: investing more time and effort up front, working harder to cultivate and sustain the JV relationship, and standardizing key processes and learning mechanisms.

Invest more up front

As business negotiations go, JVs are marathons, not sprints. In their rush to complete a deal quickly and begin capturing value, inexperienced JV planners neglect the foundational steps of planning. Commonly, they jump too quickly into high-stakes discussions on specific deal terms such as how ownership is divided, who nominates key leaders, and what intellectual-property protections will be put in place. What they leave aside is an explicit understanding of how well those terms match the objectives of the deal.

In fact, most companies need to invest more time in the early phases of deal planning and preparing for negotiations. Our research has shown that many planners focus more than half of their negotiating time hammering out specific deal terms that should be addressed late in negotiations and only 20 percent of their time on the JV structure and business model, which should be addressed first. In contrast, those same planners believe that the phases of the process devoted to internal alignment and the business model represent 60 percent of the total value at risk, while the phase devoted to deal terms accounts for only 10 percent (Exhibit 1).

That disconnect between time spent and value derived reinforces damaging habits. Deal terms are important, but they are difficult to correctly perceive and negotiate without a clear articulation of broader issues including deal objectives, market considerations, and walk-away points. Negotiators who lack that foundation are poorly prepared to discuss deal terms. The cost can often be measured in time. For example, negotiations slow considerably when negotiators fixate on specific, preconceived deal terms even though other solutions could also work or when they belabor negotiations on all possible considerations instead of covering the most likely ones. Cost can also be measured by long-term damage to the JV. When negotiators fail to examine a potential partner’s deeper motives or to consider the regulatory landscape fully, companies can end up with deal terms that don’t adequately govern an agreement—and that can carry substantial costs.

For example, after a European company formed a JV to manufacture equipment in China, it unexpectedly learned that local regulators would compel it to transfer a larger equity stake to its Chinese partner, which threatened the deal’s feasibility. If the European company’s negotiators had conducted a more rigorous up-front process, they likely would have discovered that requirement. Instead, the venture’s launch was delayed, and the European company’s governance rights were diminished—consequences that might have been avoided.

Companies can avoid or at least mitigate such problems by investing more time in the early stages of planning. One US agricultural company requires extensive up-front business planning to confirm internal alignment and identify the motives of each counterparty. Planners there credit their rigorous preparation phase for making negotiations smoother.

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That’s consistent with our experience. We’ve found that companies benefit when they set up internal checks and balances to ensure that these foundational issues are articulated and confirmed internally before negotiations with partners begin in earnest. They should also engage potential partners in early discussions to confirm that they all agree on the goals of a joint endeavor, on their expectations of changes in the market over time, and on how the JV should plan to adapt as the market evolves. One global energy company learned this lesson the hard way when its partners in an existing JV objected that a new venture completed by the energy company would, over time, hurt the existing JV’s business prospects. As a result, a foreign court ordered the energy company to pay extensive damages for an initiative that never even launched.

For most companies, a good starting point is for planners to force a tough and thorough self-review to identify their own objectives, goals, and—even more difficult—their strengths and weaknesses as JV partners. Where possible, they should also convince a potential partner’s leadership to do the same, lest they get mired in internal misconceptions in the future.

Cultivate a trusting relationship

Negotiating JVs differs from negotiating mergers or acquisitions because the end goal is a sustainable, ongoing, trust-based relationship, not a one-time deal. Not surprisingly, a significant portion of our survey’s respondents indicated that the level of honesty and trust between the parent companies had a significant impact on the partnership’s overall success (Exhibit 2).

Positive initial meetings are important to establishing trust, but planners need to do more. Regular and ongoing business and social interactions with critical parent leadership-team members, including management off-site events and frequent, engaged board meetings, can help maintain trust and communication, reveal the breadth of motivating factors that influence a partner, and nurture a strong relationship even after negotiations conclude. As one energy executive observed, it is frequently only after many hours together in a “smoky room,” spread over the days, weeks, and months of negotiation, that the true motives of potential partners become clear. Understanding partner motives and securing mutual commitment to a deal beyond its financials will help ensure that all parties share the same expectations of ongoing JV operations.

In our interviews, numerous executives expressed concern about nontraditional objectives that may be motivating potential JV partners. These include sharing capital to upgrade facilities, achieving a relationship with a previously inaccessible third party, or increasing employment opportunities for a specific region. Such objectives often work to the disadvantage of a JV partner, as managers at a global conglomerate discovered. They negotiated a deal with a regional player that included transferring core technology into the JV in order to qualify for lucrative government contracts. Conglomerate executives at first applauded the deal, though the planners expressed concern that their partner’s motives might not be consistent at all levels of its organization. The venture subsequently reached a tipping point when, during an industry conference, the regional company’s senior executives boasted that they would start selling products based on the global conglomerate’s technology, but at a fraction of the price. This forced deal teams on both sides to revisit the partnership’s objectives to reaffirm the relationship’s durability.

Negotiators who understand a partner’s motivation, business needs, and capabilities well before closing a deal will be better positioned to establish a strong, candid relationship with shared, explicit expectations. Thorough research can highlight things that wouldn’t necessarily surface during negotiations but that could affect the partner’s involvement with the JV. For example, one energy company avoided a potential misstep after scrutinizing a partner company’s relationships with distributors before coinvesting in a local manufacturing operation. That analysis made it clear that the partner company’s CEO intended to use his own distribution company to exclusively channel products into a lucrative sales territory. After the energy company escalated its concerns, its partner moved ahead with the venture anyway but did not use the CEO’s distribution company.

How the best acquirers excel at integration

Standardize processes and learning mechanisms.

Unlike dedicated M&A teams that develop negotiating skills over multiple deals, JV teams tend to change from deal to deal, often due to shifting team-member roles and responsibilities or low JV deal flow. That creates little institutional memory around key processes, approaches for managing critical issues, and even partnership-specific negotiating skills. All of these things can be proactively managed, even if deal terms cannot.

Yet our survey of JV practitioners found that less than a quarter have a JV design-and implementation playbook—the kind of simple tool that most companies with M&A programs have had for years to reduce strain for the internal team and to ease discussions with potential partners. Without that kind of institutional knowledge, inexperienced teams often see JV negotiations as zero-sum games; they rigidly calculate wins and losses on every negotiating point. That leaves them with little flexibility to appreciate the needs of a partner interested in entering into a commercial agreement or reaching consensus on the terms of a mutually beneficial JV. The result can be a weak or ineffective deal. For example, one global company faced challenges investing in a regional JV because it focused too emphatically on legalistic deal terms to protect its own interests. That created an adversarial tone in the negotiations and undermined the collaboration needed to allow both companies and the JV to succeed. It also prolonged the process, to the frustration of the JV partners.

For most JVs, long-term success also requires an agreement process that is transparent and follows patterns of conversation established from the outset. At its core, this simply means communicating with all parties about how, when, and what to communicate. The eventual pattern of communication may vary from deal to deal, and not all parties will like it. That’s OK. Just laying it out keeps expectations aligned, focuses conversations, and reduces time-consuming delays. Otherwise, internal approval processes can cause bottlenecks, and not having the right people in the room can bring momentum to a standstill.

Standardized processes are especially helpful once a deal is under way, when adapting and restructuring can strengthen a partnership and increase financial returns—as long as the relationship is strong and the process has clearly allowed for adaptation. One aerospace partnership ensured all parties continued to agree on the goals of the JV by contractually committing to a standardized annual evaluation process. This included valuing each partner’s contributions to ensure that the risks and rewards for each partner remain consistent with the original objectives of the deal. In the event that one partner’s contributions did not match the other’s, the terms of the agreement required the lagging partner to increase its contribution. Together with a management team in which the CEO position is swapped on a regular basis, both partners have been able to maintain a decades-long relationship.

With so many companies planning to increase their JV activity in coming years, it’s worth investing the time in negotiations and planning to ensure the value of these ventures.

Eileen Kelly Rinaudo is a senior expert in McKinsey’s New York office, where Jason Roswig is a consultant.

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The Monarch Joint Venture was formed in 2008 to uphold the United States' priorities in the North American Monarch Conservation Plan (NAMCP) (Commission for Environmental Cooperation, 2008). Based on the NAMCP, the Monarch Conservation Implementation Framework is a current guiding document for organizations and entities in the United States to engage in monarch conservation. It is maintained and regularly updated by the MJV as new feedback, research, and conservation priorities become available.

It will take widespread participation and collaboration among all sectors to reach our nation’s monarch conservation targets and preserve the monarch migration for generations to come. The Framework is intended to be a dynamic document that provides direction for any individual or entity involved in or planning for monarch conservation work. While designed with monarchs in mind, the impacts resonate further, as monarchs are a flagship for pollinators, grassland wildlife, environmental conservation, and sustainability.

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SFBJV partners were thrilled to celebrate the completion and release of our updated Implementation Strategy on October 14, 2022, in person at the Richardson Bay Audubon Sanctuary in Tiburon, California. The celebration honored the work of close to one hundred individuals, including our Management Board , other leadership, working committee members, and staff who contributed to this effort.  

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Joint venture between Stellantis and Leapmotor to start operation in September

The Stellantis Group and Chinese electric car manufacturer Leapmotor have finalised the establishment of their joint venture and announced that Leapmotor International will commence operations in Europe in September 2024.

The market launch in Europe will initially start in France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Greece and Romania. In addition, both sides have announced that 200 sales outlets will be established by the end of the year, followed by 500 by 2026. The expansion into the India & Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa and South America regions is also planned from the fourth quarter of 2026. As far as product priorities are concerned, the T03 and C10 models are to be launched on the market first under Leapmotor International, followed by the introduction of at least one further model per year over the next three years.

Stellantis announced at the end of October that it was investing in Leapmotor and acquiring a 20 per cent stake in the Chinese company for 1.5 billion euros. The deal is intended to boost Leapmotor’s sales in China – and in Europe – and is based on the establishment of the aforementioned joint venture called Leapmotor International.

It was already known that Stellantis would hold 51 per cent and Leapmotor 49 per cent of the joint venture. When announcing the plans, both sides also announced that the joint venture would have ‘exclusive rights to export, sell and manufacture Leapmotor products outside Greater China’. The management team, based in Amsterdam, will be led by CEO Tianshu Xin, the former head of Stellantis’ China business.

Further key points were then made public in November: As revealed in the annual report on Stellantis’ latest quarterly figures, the joint venture is aiming to sell 500,000 electric cars outside China by 2030. Within China, Leapmotor aims to sell one million electric cars per year in the long term. Leapmotor International is also set to become another brand of the Stellantis Group for low-cost electric cars.

“The creation of Leapmotor International is a great step forward in helping address the urgent global warming issue with state-of-the-art BEV models that will compete with existing Chinese brands in key markets around the world,” comments Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares. “Leveraging our existing global presence, we will soon be able to offer our customers price competitive and tech-centric electric vehicles that will exceed their expectations. Under Tianshu Xin’s leadership, they have built a compelling worldwide commercial and industrial strategy to quickly ramp-up the sales distribution channels to support Leapmotor’s robust growth and create value for both partners.”

“The partnership between Leapmotor and Stellantis demonstrates a high level of efficiency, opening a new chapter in the global integration of China’s intelligent electric vehicle industry,” said Leapmotor Founder, Chairman and CEO Jiangming Zhu. “Leveraging Leapmotor’s cutting-edge technology and products, along with Stellantis’ support in areas such as overseas channels, services, and marketing, we hope that users around the world can experience the exceptional driving and riding experience brought by Leapmotor products. We believe that this cooperation can give Leapmotor a boost to become a respected world-class intelligent electric vehicle company.”

Last year, both sides set up a ‘liaison office’ to coordinate the collaboration – on the Stellantis side, this was headed up by manager Grégoire Olivier, who will also act as a member of Leapmotor’s board of directors. ‘Grégoire Olivier will ensure the implementation of the new strategic partnership, including the establishment of the sales joint venture and coordination with Leapmotor on the utilisation of Stellantis’ sales and distribution resources,’ it said. Olivier was previously Chief Operating Officer of Stellantis in China. This position will now be filled by Doug Ostermann, who will also become a member of the Leapmotor board.

Stellantis’ plan is to utilise Leapmotor’s “highly innovative, cost-efficient EV ecosystem” in China, which, as leaked in advance , probably refers to the Chinese manufacturer’s Leap 3.0 platform. The latter was presented at the IAA in Munich in September . At the premiere, Leapmotor emphasised that it was open to cooperation, as the company not only wanted to build cars, but also to become ‘a provider of core technologies for electric vehicles’, as Zhu Jiangming, CEO of Leapmotor, put it at the time.

Exports to Europe via Leapmotor International will now begin in September 2024. Among other things, this should help Stellantis to achieve the targets defined in its Dare Forward 2030 strategy. All of the car manufacturer’s brands are to sell only electric cars in Europe from 2030. In the USA, the target BEV share of sales of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles (including pickups) is 50 per cent.

The joint venture is now focussing on the T03 small electric car and the C10 SUV model from Leapmotor. Back in March, Reuters reported, citing insiders, that Stellantis was planning to build the T03 at its Polish plant in Tychy. The Fiat 600e , among others, has also been produced there since last year. The T03 is already available in some European markets, for example in France at prices starting at around 20,000 euros.

In March, it was also announced that Leapmotor was planning to sell the C10 in Europe, specifically in Germany, France, Italy and Spain. The joint venture is now likely to be responsible for the launch.

In February , rumours emerged that Stellantis could produce electric cars for its Chinese joint venture partner at the Mirafiori plant in Italy. This report was also based on information from insiders — and has still not been confirmed.

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Final Habitat Management Plan and Environmental Assessment Released

Finding of No Significant Impact and Selected Alternative

After reviewing comments received and further consultation with experts and partner organizations, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service made a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) in implementing the proposed alternative outlined in the draft Habitat Management Plan (HMP) and Fire Management Plan (FMP) for Parker River and Thacher Island National Wildlife Refuges.  Refuge staff updated the final Habitat Management Plan and the Fire Management Plan to provide more detail and clarification and added more in-depth analysis to the Environmental Assessment (EA)  to address questions about socioeconomic impacts and impacts of prescribed fire; as well as impacts to bird use and bird watching opportunities.     These final documents are linked below.  Hard copies of these documents with changes highlighted are available at the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center at 6 Plum Island Turnpike, Newburyport, MA. 

Under the selected alternative, the Service will implement strategic, adaptive approaches that maintain and restore the ability and resiliency of wildlife and habitats to adapt to climate change climate change Climate change includes both global warming driven by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases and the resulting large-scale shifts in weather patterns. Though there have been previous periods of climatic change, since the mid-20th century humans have had an unprecedented impact on Earth's climate system and caused change on a global scale. Learn more about climate change and other stressors.  Prescribed fire will be incorporated as a tool to meet habitat goals.  Tidal restoration to the three refuge impoundments will be phased over the next 15 years, starting with Stage Island.  Extensive monitoring and adaptive learning of impoundment vulnerability and transition of Stage Island post-tidal restoration will inform and refine the decision regarding North Pool and Bill Forward Pool.  

Where to Read the Final Documents

A virtual copy of the finalized documents can be read online at: https://www.fws.gov/media/final-habitat-management-plan-parker-river-nwr-thacher-island-nwr .

Hard copies are also available to read at the refuge visitor center located at 6 Plum Island Turnpike, Newburyport, MA 01950

Public Comments Received During Comment Period

Many individuals attended the Information Sessions and submitted comments during the public comment period from  September 28 to October 28 of 2023 .  In addition to comments provided at the information sessions, we received written comments from 145 people, with a large portion of comments strongly opposed to breaching the impoundments.  

It is evident that everyone who commented deeply cares about the Refuge and its wildlife and habitats and wishes to see the best management decision.  Refuge staff appreciate those who took the time to add thoughtful perspectives and additional information.

Summary of Comments and Response

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reviewed, synthesized, and considered all comments received, and consulted additional experts and partners as needed.  A detailed summary of comments and responses is included in Appendix A of the final Environmental Assessment.  Key comments and responses are excerpted as follows:  

What is the timeline for decommissioning the impoundments? 

The timing for implementing tidal restoration to the impoundments will depend on many factors, including securing funding and necessary permits, staffing capacity, and changing environmental conditions and climate predictions. Refuge staff aims to initiate tidal restoration to the Stage Island Impoundment by 2027.   

The final plan has a goal of restoring tidal flow to Bill Forward and North Pool Impoundment by 2035, but the exact timing may be adjusted based on results of the Stage Island project, the vulnerability of the other two impoundments and relative elevation difference between the impoundments and adjacent salt marsh salt marsh Salt marshes are found in tidal areas near the coast, where freshwater mixes with saltwater. Learn more about salt marsh .  

Why are you restoring the impoundments and what would success look like? 

The three Refuge impoundments have been managed for nesting, feeding and resting habitat for waterfowl since the 1950s,

 and for migrating shorebirds and nesting marsh and wading birds in the last 20 years, providing exceptional opportunities for wildlife observation. However, the impoundments have also been subsiding, the infrastructure to maintain them is aging, and the freshwater wetlands are being overtaken by invasive species invasive species An invasive species is any plant or animal that has spread or been introduced into a new area where they are, or could, cause harm to the environment, economy, or human, animal, or plant health. Their unwelcome presence can destroy ecosystems and cost millions of dollars. Learn more about invasive species such as Phragmites sp. Further, increased storm frequency and intensity makes the dikes more vulnerable to breaching. An unplanned breach would lead to further subsidence, anoxic dead zones, potential erosion of the Refuge Road, and costly subsequent restoration. Through proactive restoration over the next 12+ years, the Service will create conditions to allow impounded areas to adapt to climate change, keep up with sea level rise, reduce invasive plants, and benefit fish, shorebirds, and waterfowl species.

Final design and permitting for the Stage Island Impoundment will provide exact details on how the project will be implemented.  Successful grant funding will determine exact timing of when restoration will occur.  Extensive monitoring will ensure that the project is progressing as anticipated and adaptive management will be implemented to address any issues. 

A successful project for Stage Island would be a tidal regime where the flooding and ebbing tides are in equilibrium. Visually, the former impoundment would have a mosaic of mudflats and vegetated marsh ( Spartina and other saltmarsh species). The area is expected to have extensive mudflats immediately after tidal flow is restored. As much as possible, staff will allow flooding tides to form tidal channels inside the impoundments, and deposit sediment on the marsh surface; thus, raising marsh elevation. Any area that revegetates in Spartina alterniflora will trap additional sediment and add biomass to marsh accretion (at rate of 6-10 mm per year or higher). The Stage Island Impoundment is currently losing elevation at rate of 2-3 mm per year. 

Extensive monitoring will provide detailed information regarding timing and extent of anticipated transition after tidal restoration, which will further refine decisions regarding the other two impoundments.  The observation tower and platform around Stage Island will provide good vantage points to observe both habitat and wildlife throughout the transition period.  

Can you leave one impoundment (Bill Forward Pool) in place?  

Staff considered this request received during the comment period, and decided that it would be irresponsible to commit to no action with the risk of catastrophic failure increasing each year.  However, the timing of implementation for Bill Forward and Stage Island Pools can and will be adjusted based on future monitoring data.  Refuge staff believe that both bird use and wildlife viewing opportunities will be sustained or expanded in the restored estuaries.  The monitoring of Stage Island project will inform this in the next 10 years.  Staff welcomes collaboration and assistance from the birding community to help us document changes in wildlife use post tidal restoration.  

Concerns regarding loss of habitat for bird use and decrease in wildlife viewing experience  

While many people expressed concerns about perceived loss of habitat to shorebirds, waterfowl, marsh and wading birds and roosting tree swallows, the Service anticipates many of these birds to continue using the estuary habitat post tidal restoration.  Further, we believe that tidal restoration is the only way to ensure the long-term availability of these areas to support wildlife use.  

Some birds, such as shorebirds and waterfowl, would continue to use the restored salt marsh and tidal flats, and will benefit from the abundant invertebrates provided by the flooding and ebbing tides.  The prior Salt Pannes restoration is a good example of how the impoundment may support shorebirds and waterfowl in the initial years post-breaching.  As the former impoundment gains elevation and revegetates, waterfowl use will increase, as will use by some secretive marsh birds, like Clapper Rail, American Bittern, King Rail and Marsh Wren. These areas may also support the Federally listed Black Rail in future years as species shift northward.   However, birdwatchers may not see nesting Least Bitterns and Virginia Rail, which currently breed in the North Pool, and use freshwater marshes.

Every August, Parker River NWR receives tens to hundreds of thousands of tree swallows that congregate prior to migration.

  This annual phenomenon will continue as the tree swallows are attracted to the Refuge by the abundant berries and insects in the maritime shrub and forest habitat.  A significant portion of the swallows currently roost in the North Pool vegetation (mainly Phragmites and cattail).  This will remain unchanged for 10+ years.  When North Pool is breached, tree swallows will shift to roosting in other areas, including the shrubs as they currently do; or even tall Spartina alterniflora that may comprise a significant portion of a restored Stage Island Estuary.  

Many people expressed concerns over the loss of wildlife viewing opportunities with the proposed impoundment breaching.  Except where the breach needs to be cut to restore tidal flow, the impoundment dikes will remain and continue to provide elevated viewing opportunities.  Bird use will shift slightly and continue to evolve as the estuary recovers following restoration.  The restored estuary will continue to provide good wildlife viewing opportunities, with a shifting variety of species and guilds as the habitat evolves 5-10 years post restoration.  

What is the true risk of catastrophic failure, and can Refuge improve the dike to reduce risk?  What’s the risk to Hellcat swamp? 

Although the dikes have held for 70 years, they are increasingly vulnerable to future storms.  Numerous unprecedented storms in the past decade have demonstrated that historical observations are no longer good predictors of future conditions.  The consensus among coastal geomorphologists (scientists that study the movement of landforms in response to storm and wave action) and salt marsh ecologists is that the vulnerability of the impoundments is tied to the width of the salt marsh adjacent to the dikes. As the salt marsh gets narrower, that protection decreases exponentially. The erosion of marsh at the base of the dike at the main creek channel is also a factor in dike vulnerability.  Simultaneously, increasing storm intensity increases the chance that a storm overtops the dike with each passing year.  

Raising the dike would temporarily stave off risk of breach for some storms but will not ensure the long-term viability of the impoundment.  Delaying tidal restoration will also increase project cost and reduce the probability of success for future options. Refuge staff is unlikely to obtain funding for a project that delays restoration of ecological integrity and function on a national wildlife refuge national wildlife refuge A national wildlife refuge is typically a contiguous area of land and water managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service  for the conservation and, where appropriate, restoration of fish, wildlife and plant resources and their habitats for the benefit of present and future generations of Americans. Learn more about national wildlife refuge .  

Hydrodynamic models based on 2016 data indicate that the Hellcat Forest will not be affected by restoring tidal flow of the North Pool. However, increased inundation from sea-level rise (SLR) and marsh migration may affect this area. As this action is at least 10 years out, Refuge staff will gather more updated field data to predict these impacts when design of the project is being finalized. To address these concerns, the following strategies were added under the Impoundment (p129) and Maritime Shrub and Forest (p119) Objectives in Chapter 5:  

• As part of modeling and final design for decommissioning of North Pool, explore vulnerability of Hellcat Forest to dieback with tidal restoration. Explore options to reduce impacts to Hellcat Forest both immediately post tidal restoration and under future SLR scenarios. 

Is breaching the impoundment counter to the Refuge’s mission, or its mandate to manage for threatened or endangered species and biodiversity?  

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the primary agency responsible for conserving migratory birds in the United States, and has worked with partners to develop a flyway approach to bird conservation.  Through the Joint Ventures, bird conservation strategies are developed and regularly updated at various geographic scales that preserves and enhance all bird populations in perpetuity ( Bird Conservation Region s).  In general, these strategies seek to focus management efforts on species where they are most abundant; thus increasing effectiveness of conservation strategies.   The national and regional strategies are stepped down to the network of over 500 refuges and disseminated to partner organizations.  For Parker River NWR (BCR 30), the highest priority bird species are black ducks and salt marsh sparrows, as well as shorebirds, waterfowl, and songbirds that use shrub habitat.  Marsh and wading birds that would lose freshwater breeding habitat with the implementation of the plan (Virginia and Sora Rail, Least Bitterns, Pied-billed Grebes, and American coots) are common nationally and globally with populations stable or increasing.  American Bittern and Common Gallinule are species of Least Concern, with small declines in population. 

In the context of rapidly changing climate conditions, restoring functioning habitats and healthy and robust wildlife populations will ensure that both wildlife and habitats can adapt and change to future stressors.  The final HMP and FMP restores the ecological integrity and function of Plum Island’s habitat to ensure that they will be resilient and provide habitat for wildlife for the next 100 years and beyond.

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Conserving Birds Since 1988

Monitoring & Evalution Plans

These monitoring and evaluation plans identify priority information needs necessary to strategically advance conservation planning, and achieve those objectives described in the CVJV 2006 Implementation Plan.

CVJV Monitoring and Evaluation Plan for Shorebirds and Waterbirds

The Central Valley of California supports one of the largest wintering shorebird populations of any inland site in North America and also sustains widespread breeding populations of black-necked stilts, American avocets, and killdeer. In addition, large and varied populations of waterbirds (egrets, herons, ibis, bitterns, rails, grebes, pelicans and cormorants) also depend on the Central Valley during the wintering and breeding periods While shorebird and waterbird conservation was not targeted in the original 1990 Central Valley Habitat Joint Venture Implementation Plan, these bird groups undoubtedly benefited from many of the habitat conservation achievements generated by the plan. The Monitoring & Evaluation Plan for Shorebirds and Waterbirds consists of the highest priority information needs to advance conservation planning and implementation in the Central Valley Joint Venture.

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CVJV Monitoring and Evaluation Plan for Riparian Songbirds

The Central Valley of California has lost over 98% of its riparian habitat in the past 150 years and riparian habitat loss may be the most important cause of population declines among songbird species in western North America. Several once common species are now extirpated from the Central Valley. The Central Valley Joint Venture is seeking to reverse this decline, and in its 2006 Implementation Plan has developed population objectives for a suite of focal species. This monitoring and evaluation plan addresses information needs of the 2006 Implementation Plan in order to strengthen the capacity of the CVJV to set targets and evaluate success in its effort to recover riparian songbird populations.

CVJV Monitoring and Evaluation Plan for Wintering Waterfowl

The Monitoring & Evaluation Plan for wintering waterfowl consists of the highest priority information needs to advance conservation planning and implementation in the Central Valley Joint Venture. The issues in this plan contribute to strengthening the CVJV's biological foundation by testing key assumptions of the 2006 Implementation Plan, refining bio-energetic models, informing habitat management and evaluating program effectiveness.

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CVJV Monitoring and Evaluation Plan for Breeding Waterfowl

The Monitoring & Evaluation Plan for breeding waterfowl consists of the highest priority information needs to advance conservation planning and implementation in the Central Valley Joint Venture. The issues in this plan contribute to strengthening the CVJV's biological foundation for breeding waterfowl and focus on inventory and assessment of key habitats, and evaluation of the relationship among vital rates, habitat parameters and population response.

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The CVJV partnership has earned an impressive record of accomplishment since its inception in 1988, and is making great progress towards meeting the objectives identified in its 2020 Implementation Plan.

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